Cancer Survivor Story: Debra Dennison

I’m Debra Denison. I was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in March, 2017, and at that time they thought I would need a simple lumpectomy followed by about 16 rounds of radiation. Apparently though, after my lumpectomy that was supposed to be so simple, they uncovered three tumors, not one and they found that the nodes that they had determined to be free of cancer were in fact impacted. So they rushed me into chemotherapy for months. But at the beginning of chemotherapy, I discovered that I needed to really look farther. I knew there had to be a better way.

Oh, it affected everyone. Me and everyone, my daughter, my family, my spouse, my son, my friends. It affected everyone because I was the healthy one of the group. I was always the one that never got sick. So my entire social system and social support system said, “It can’t be, it can’t be. You’re not the one. This isn’t for you. This happens to someone else. But it doesn’t happen to you, Deb.” But it was happening to me and that was the hard part.

Oh, they totally rallied round. I’m very blessed. My daughter, I knew I could count on her. She went right into research mode. My friends were there by my side. They were bringing little gifts. They all asked to do a chemo session with me. So every two weeks, I had a different friend sitting beside me in the purple chair in our chemo lab and offering continuous support. Friends calling, saying, “Let’s go for a walk,” because I was big into exercise. So we would walk every day. They were just always there. My friends were so there for me. It was wonderful.

Beyond the traditional that my oncologist recommended at that time, it was when I started really reaching out and looking into something else because I really believe your body can heal itself. I really always have believed that. So I delved deep and hard into research. I came across Ty and Charlene and their Truth About Cancer series. I ordered it. I listened. Every single day, I would spend probably four hours a day, inundated myself with good, helpful information and I changed everything about my life. I mean my life is almost unrecognizable, the before and the after, not that I didn’t have a great life before, but I am a changed person today.

There were so many things. I found God. So I found a very nifty church close to my house and I have my church community and they were incredibly supportive. But I changed my diet into extreme clean eating, herbs, spices, oils. I cut out meat for several months and then I started gradually bringing it in. I hired a nutritionist, I hired a reflexologist, a holistic nutritionist, a holistic reflexologist, an energy specialist, massage therapy. I was doing everything I can and still am. I did a lot of vitamin C continuously throughout the chemo and beyond, still am, vitamin C, IV vitamin C and Mistletoe. I was searching but I was following everything up with research that I felt was solid and I was praying that I was on the right path and the happy day of my life was January 30th when I met with my surgeon having had a double mastectomy and she said, “The pathology has come back, Debra and there is no evidence of breast cancer left and your nodes are clear.” That was wow. Wow. That was pretty, pretty joyful, excited. Praise God for that.

I’m doing great. I’m maintaining all my protocols. I’m still eating extremely clean, very spiritual, working on my sleep, like really working on my sleep, which is always going to be a bit of a challenge for me, I think. I’m still doing my IV vitamin C and seeing all my specialists, still doing it, continuing on with everything.

Well, I refused further treatment from the mainstream. They wanted me to do 25 rounds of radiation and I said, “No. My pathology is showing clear. I don’t want to do that.” So they have accepted that. So my status to date is all good. All good. Yeah. I keep going for markers, tests that I paid for, tumor markers that are extremely low, so I have every reason to be optimistically, cautiously optimistic, but extremely grateful that I feel so good and I’m happy to be here.

My number one recommendation is I call them the A-team. The A-team is your your standard team. You have to listen to them, but I don’t think my number one recommendation is to take everything that they say as the only way to be. I believe wholeheartedly that cancer is a metabolic disease and it can be beaten and we just have to find out the root cause and fix that root cause. That is my… Find good people. Find people that are aligned with your line of thinking. Big thing is diet and exercise. I mean, no big brainer there. It’s the big thing.

Well, one, that’s a great question because my oncologist, I would go every two weeks for my treatments and prior to the treatment I always had to see my oncologist and she kept saying, “Well, how are you feeling?” Because I had four months of chemo every two weeks and I said, “I’m feeling really good. Surprisingly, I’m never sick. I don’t feel nauseous. I am up and at them every day. I never have a down day where I can’t get out of bed,” which I had been warned about. So my aha moment at that point was whatever I’m doing, which was changing, throwing everything at it, but changing my diet big time and changing my lifestyle and my belief system was working. It was working for me, and the IV vitamin C, et cetera. Something was working and I didn’t want to mess with that.

If you haven’t found a strength, strength in prayer, find it. It’s extremely elevating and God is always there to give you someone to talk to about it. I think you pray and you pray for the tools to heal yourself. [Josh Hack 00:10:12] said, “Everybody is different.” I totally agree with that. Everyone is different. Everybody may have a different healing journey, but you need to be on that journey. Jump on that journey bandwagon and please don’t let yourself settle for just what our traditional medicine, our modern medicine is dictating. There’s way more than that.

Have you survived a cancer diagnosis and want to tell about it?